Daughters of the Lake(37)

“We just haven’t had a chance to tackle the renovation of the third floor before now,” Simon lamented as they walked through the hallways. “We had intended to renovate one floor a year, but we got so busy so quickly . . .” As they reached a door at the end of the second-floor hallway, he fished an old-fashioned skeleton key out of his pocket.

“Original?” Kate wondered.

“Of course,” Simon replied. “I had all of the locks replaced on the guest bedrooms, but there was just something about these old keys that made me want to keep some of them around.” He held the key up for Kate to see.

“It really gives you a sense of how long ago this place was built,” Kate mused. “I haven’t seen a key like that in years. I can’t think of the last time.”

“I guarantee you, when you get upstairs, you won’t remember the last time you saw that much dust, either.” Simon laughed and put the key in the lock. It opened with a satisfying chock. Hand in hand, just as he had when they were children, Simon led Kate up the cobwebbed stairway.

The contrast was dramatic and immediate. The vibrant colors of the second-floor hallway faded as the pair ascended the stairs, which seemed as gray and dull as the thick coating of dust covering it all. Kate stopped halfway up the staircase and turned around, noting the odd juxtaposition of the reds and yellows in the hallway through the doorframe with the dull gray of the staircase on which they now stood.

“You know what this reminds me of?” Kate whispered to Simon. “The scene in The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy and Toto walk out of their black-and-white world into the rich colors of Oz for the first time. Only in reverse.”

“If you’re Dorothy, we both know who that makes me. I resent it.”

Kate laughed and gave her cousin a squeeze on the arm. They reached the top of the stairs, and Kate braced for her first view of the portrait in decades. It wasn’t there. She looked this way and that. Nothing.

“What did you do with the lady?” she asked her cousin.

“Oh, I brought her downstairs,” he said, brushing a cobweb from his shoulder. “She hangs over my bed now.”

Kate stared at her cousin, open mouthed. Simon shrieked with laughter.

“You are the most gullible person alive.” He shoved her arm, giggling. “As if I’d have that scowling shrew’s picture anywhere near me. I had Jonathan bring her down into the basement. I wouldn’t even touch her, and yet I didn’t dare throw her out.”

Only then did Kate realize she hadn’t yet seen Simon’s longtime partner.

“Where is Jonathan?” she asked. “With everything going on, I didn’t even think to ask. My God, I’ve been so self-absorbed. I’m so sorry.”

“He’s antiquing down south,” Simon said quickly. “We need some more furniture for this floor, and he needed a solo trip. And you’re forgiven for being self-absorbed. Now, let’s get to these boxes.”

Kate took hold of her cousin’s hands. “No. You love antiquing. You live for antiquing. You are never happier than when you’re haggling with an antique dealer.”

“And?”

“And—why didn’t you go with him?”

Simon smiled and squeezed her hands. “The dearest person in my world had her world fall apart, that’s why. When you called wanting to come here for a few days, I wasn’t about to say no. We had planned to be gone, so we didn’t book anybody in the hotel for these two weeks. And so, with no guests on the horizon, it seemed like the perfect chance to get some alone time, just me and you.”

Only then did it dawn on Kate she hadn’t seen any other guests, either. Self-absorbed indeed.

Tears tickled the backs of her eyes. “You gave up an antiquing trip with Jonathan for me?”

“Are you kidding? I’d give up stumbling across the Hope Diamond’s twin in an old trunk for you.” He furrowed his brow. “Well, okay. Not that. But just about anything else.”

The two shared a laugh. But Kate felt a twinge of guilt all the same.

“You’re so good to me,” she said.

“Of course I am,” he sniffed. “It’s what I do.”

Kate coughed and looked around. “Boy, you weren’t kidding about the dust up here,” she said.

To Kate, the room seemed to be the size of a high school gymnasium, or near enough. Rows of windows closed tight with indoor shutters lined the walls. Only a small amount of sunlight filtered through the slats.

At one end of the room stood a stone fireplace that reminded Kate of fireplaces she had seen in ancient castles in Europe. There was no hearth; instead the opening was at floor level and was nearly big enough to walk into. On each side of the massive fireplace, two doors stood closed and presumably locked. The room itself contained no furniture. Littered all over the floor was a collection of boxes and old chests, containing what Kate assumed were relics of the past.

Kate and Simon stood in silence for a few moments, taking in what was in front of them. “This is one huge room,” Kate whispered. “I didn’t remember it being so large.”

“It’s a ballroom,” Simon said. “I’ve always wanted a house with a ballroom in it. That doesn’t seem like too much to ask for, does it? A simple ballroom in which to hold cotillions, galas, and so forth. Everyone ought to have one.”